Commentary 17 - Reflections on Growing Old and King Lear

Commentary 17 - Reflections on Growing Old and King Lear

(A thought email exchange with the Jackson Zoom Group - November 2023)

Perhaps some thoughts if you are exploring what can be learnt from "King Lear" as you face Old Age in the Moment!

• The cutting through line is when Lear yells to the winds " Nothing can come of nothing, speak again. Now Gods stand up for bastards! To have a thankless child." 
• The Play can be seen on many levels - a simple tale of Father/Daughters relationship. Or as a provocation of Parent Control that even wants to extend through Legacy to continuing Control after Death. Or a dying power becoming irrelevant! Or the reality of life's ending when you have already forsaken a common morality of the next generation and an understanding of others' needs, and have unwittingly shaped the faults in your own children.
• Life finishes with some grasp of understanding by this "poor old man" but it is too late - "Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. Shall never see so much, nor live so long. Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise. Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say."
• King Lear goes mad before our eyes, much as we watch the demise of the minds of many we love. We cannot stop it or even affect it and we know the transition will harm all the family. Lear is us in our ageing, our dealing with the slippage of health, relevancy, power, knowledge, understanding, and finally speech. There is no final contentment for most!
• All of us can point to similar stories personally or even publicly. We watch the series "Succession", we remember (for the yanks) Joe Kennedy and his family, (for the Brits) the farewell speech of Margaret Thatcher as she exited No. 10, (for the Aussies) the Packers and the Murdochs, (for India) the collapse of the Gandhi dynasty ........ and so it goes. 
• I often think about Lear when I visit Cemeteries and see vaults and monuments which after some time lean with their weight on the earth and fill through the constancy of the rainstorms.
• In the end, Lear's daughters are his greatest "traitors".  When I used to teach about the role of Estate Executors, I tried to make the point that actually Executors can do what they want (not necessarily what the Will states) as long as the benefactors agree or don't object. I have watched photo albums, diaries, published books, loved artwork, endless keepsakes, unfinished projects, medals, awards, favourite furniture .... all being dumped by those of whom the Testator had so much hope. The Executor can't force them, but in the end can only watch. 
• For me, King Lear teaches us that not only is Aging intolerable, it is finite. And nearly always it cannot be planned!

Lear has been brilliantly performed in a variety of adaptations including the transference to the Japanese Dynasty of Ran, but IMHO it always requires great Actors. 

At the finish King Lear is unable to even save his daughter and is left carrying her dead body whilst muttering "Look on her. Look, her lips!" 

It seems that moment has much to say to any Parent or Grandparent!